Happy New Year!!

We got back to Sevilla just in time to celebrate Nochevieja (new year's eve) and decided to go out to dinner with the girls since our fridge and pantry were a little bare.  Our intent was to go to one of the typical tapas restaurants to eat coquinas and drink Cava (spanish champagne) but soon found out that some restaurants were closed and the rest had special menus and were booked for the night!  So after wandering around we decided to eat at a Japanese joint right in Santa Cruz.  It's been a long time since I had anything Asian so this was a nice break from the usual.  The girls had fun playing with chopsticks and we ate early enough to avoid the Nochevieja rush.

After putting the girls to bed, Dave and I popped open our bottle of Cava and waited anxiously to eat our grapes at midnight.  This is a huge tradition here and we followed the instructions given on TV on how to do it properly.  There is big clock in Puerta del Sol plaza in Madrid where the whole country watches and waits for the chimes at midnight.  There are four warning bells and then the clock chimes 12 times and you must eat a grape on each chime.  This is to bring you good luck for the upcoming year.  We ate our grapes on schedule so we look forward to what 2012 brings us.

The girls ate their grapes in the morning.  They were a little bewildered about all the fuss over grapes but they did as mommy told them and ate their grapes for the camera.

 Grapes for breakfast

 Most people buy cans of grapes packaged especially for New Year's.  These are Disney ones for kids!

~ Ali